History comes alive Saturday at the 22nd Annual Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing Celebration, taking place at Missouri’s first nationally recognized Underground Railroad site.
“There will be food vendors and activities that day, but it all comes to a standstill when the play goes up,” says event manager Angela da Silva, the historian, educator, performer, and founder of the National Black Tourism Network. (You might remember da Silva for her 2011 slave sale reenactment on the Old Courthouse steps, kicking off Civil War sesquicentennial observations.)
Stay up-to-date with the local arts scene
Subscribe to the weekly St. Louis Arts+Culture newsletter to discover must-attend art exhibits, performances, festivals, and more.
Expect horses, wagons, a mob scene, and more as actors, including from the Blue Gray Alliance, reenact three escapes by enslaved people in Missouri. It all takes place at the site of the bold 1855 river crossing from Missouri to freedom in Illinois that was facilitated by Black abolitionist Mary Meachum. “There’s nothing on the site,” says da Silva. “It’s the same vista those nine slaves would have seen in 1855.”
In addition to Meachum’s historic attempt at moving nine enslaved people across the river by cover of night, the event highlights two other escapes.
Attendees will see a dramatization of the 1842 escape of teenage Caroline Quarlls, who used her light complexion to pass as white at times and who hid and accepted help from Underground Railroad conductors. “She is the first enslaved person to scout the trail through Wisconsin to go to Canada,” says da Silva. “There’s a mob scene—the owner of Caroline hired attorneys and slave catchers to go get her; they got very close, but this entire town came to her aid.”
The other dramatization centers on the 1847 escape of Washington Reed and his family. “When slaves ran with children, they only had a 17 percent chance of making it, but this family did,” says da Silva. “In the runaway notice, it said they are probably in the company of a white man with a wagon. We’re having a wagon brought here from a museum in Arkansas, an early wagon with iron wheels.”
The event, titled “Wouldn’t Take Nothing for my Journey,” will be stirring but not easy to watch at times, says da Silva, who credits the reenactments with bringing history to life. “It’s gonna get ugly out there… It’s realism—I’m not whitewashing it in all its brutality.”
The event starts at noon with a community bike ride by Trailnet. Enjoy food vendors, magnetic poetry, kid-friendly activities, and music, including gospel choirs. Then, the reenactments begin at 3 p.m.
“That river is both a boundary and a horizon,” says da Silva. “It’s a boundary if you’re a Missouri slave on this side—you have to get across it. It’s a horizon if you can make it, a boundary if you can’t. It is holy ground. It is a spot where those nine people started their journey—or tried.”
Guests can access the site, on the Mississippi Greenway/Riverfront Trail just north of Merchant’s Bridge, by parking on East Prairie Avenue and taking a free shuttle. Noon–5 p.m. Free admission.
